N.E. Brigand wrote:
Voronwë the Faithful wrote:
The board voted 3-0 to certify, with Shinkle abstaining.
Trump has long since run out of legitimate ways to stop Biden from becoming president, but with this, I think he's also run out of illegitimate ways.
That said, that Trump even got a canvasing board member to abstain on certifying a result in which Trump's opponent beat him by well over 100,000 votes (based on possible discrepancies on a few hundred votes at most) is a blot on our democracy.
The Freedom Fund, which is supported by the family of Trump's education secretary Betsy DeVos, says that the board did the right thing, that it should have been 4-0, and that the election is over.
Some observers, having noted earlier statements by that organization leaning in this direction, and noting that the organization has ties to Mike Pence, have been wondering what this means for Donald Trump's chances of getting a pardon from President-for-a-Day Pence in January. Does it help or hurt Pence's chances in 2024? It depends on which way the Republican Party is headed. The DeVos family may be signalling that it should move away from Trump. I'm not sure Pence has a shot either way, but if Trump gets convicted of some crimes (or flees the country), Pence may hope he can convince voters that he was the "steady hand" working behind the scenes to keep things from getting really crazy in the White House.
(On that subject, along with many others, I have said that the expected spate of pardons from Trump --and maybe Pence-- will be very broad in scope, pardoning the recipients for something like "any crime they may have committed from January 1, 2015 through January 19, 2020." Elizabeth De La Vega, a former federal prosecutor, has recently been pointing out that there's been no litigation on the question of specificity in pardons. Ford's broad pardon of Nixon was never challenged.)